“Why are you turning that on?” I narrow my eyes at him this time, although he may be able to hear the sarcasm in my voice. Hopefully, he can’t sense the need that’s crawling up my bones at the moment.
“Because I don’t want anyone to hear this.”
“Why? Worried what I’m going to say?”
“No,” He cuts his eyes at me again. “I’m going to assume since you’ve hung around clubs before that you know what happens when anyone talks to the president the way that you fucking feel like you can talk to me. I let it slide last night because of everything, but… no longer.” I stay quiet, not confirming nor denying what he’s saying, but he’s right, I do fucking know better. It’s why my eye still looks the way that it does from J. It’s also the reason why I have the pills in my bag.
“What Ro, you going to be just like J and knock me around a little, if I don’t listen to you? Feel like a big strong man by hitting me.” He shocks me when he grips ahold of my shoulders and pushes me backwards against the wall. I can see his chest rising and falling, quickly. I grin at the fact that I’ve struck a nerve with him. “Or make everyone in my life turn their backs on me.” I can see the rage building in his eyes, I should stop but I haven’t quite yet learned to listen to my intuition, and how to not find poking the bear… fun. “Or, better yet, force yourself on me and claim me like every other goddamn man.” I see his fist clenching in my peripherals before I jump at the sound of breaking plaster next to my ear. I turn my head to the side and squeeze my eyes shut, instantly fear coursing through me as his fist connects with the wall, that he’s pushed me against. I should have stopped when he shoved me into the bathroom, but I just kept prodding. It’s what I always fucking do. By now you think I would learn my damn lesson.
“Look at me.” He bites out through his teeth. He’s not asking me, but insisting. Slowly, I turn my head and I can feel the tears that are threatening to spill down my cheeks.Damnit Sadie, you can’t act tough and then break down when someone snaps back.Oh, how quickly my tough demeanor deteriorates, just like it always does when I push just a little bit too far. “J’s a goddamn liar.” I nod my head, already knowing that. “You can’t trust anything that he says.” I nod again, why I would even believe him in the first place is beyond me. But perhaps I never believe him, maybe I just needed Ro to confirm it. “He told you that I betrayed them?” I’m still too frightened to speak so yet another nod. I’m certain my eyes are vast as I look up into his dark ones. “They betrayed me.” He tells me, his voice lowering as he looks down. “They set me up and sold me out to the feds. That’s why I was locked up. He’s right about one thing though, the rest of the club did leave because of me, but not because I asked them too. They left on their own accord, because of what those fuckers did to me. They set up the parent charter’s president, and took him down as well. They decided to defect and start this. I had no idea about any of it until I got out, a year ago.” He stops talking but continues to look at me, and I hesitate, somehow, frozen under his gaze. He doesn’t say anything or even move any closer to me, but the tension between us rapidly grows.
“That makes more sense, I think.” I finally whisper out. “I know first-hand just how loyal he is…” my sentence trails off and he sighs, looking down. His hand comes up as he lightly fingers the bruise still around my eye and I start to flinch away from him, but stop myself, giving into a fraction of his compassion, like he suggested.
“He’s tame compared to Rabbi.” He pauses as he looks down, breaking my hypnotic attraction to him, and then back up, meeting my eyes. I want to tell him that I know this, but I’m afraid of how that information will affect him. Maybe he will simply see me as everyone else does, a used-up waste of space. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.” He whispers.
“Not scared.” I match his volume. He shakes his head, not believing the lie that I just told as he pushes himself off of the wall. He leans against the stall behind him, and he crosses his arms over his chest. Putting the distance that I desperately need between us and closing off his alluding aura.
“Why were you in his bed?”
“Ro,” I smirk up to him. “When two people love each other—”
“Fuck you.” He snickers out.
“It’s a long story.” Is the only answer I give. I watch as the anger begins to form in his eyes, but this time it doesn’t seem to be directed at me.
“You said he’d kill you.”
“He will.”
“Why?”
“Because J feels the need to intimidate people with fear to get them to respect him.”And because I stole from him.
He nods his head, agreeing with me and then exhales. “I’m going to say this nicely, once.” His eyes drop and I’m interested about what he’s going to say next. He takes a couple of paces towards me, again boxing me against the wall. “You speak to me like that again in front of everyone…” He trails his sentences, he doesn’t need to finish what he’s going to say, because we both know that I know.
But again, I love to poke the bear.
I can’t help the words that come out of my mouth as the smirk forms on my lips. “And you’ll what?”
He has to force his own expression to remain stoic as he looks at me. “You’ll be on your ass quicker than you can realize what happened and I won’t give a fuck if J finds you.” I gulp suddenly. Not expecting him to say something serious, and not taking the enticing response that I purposefully left open for him. “I’ve already been nicer to you than I should have.”
“Why have you?” I ask him and he shrugs once.
“I guess, you remind me of someone I used to know.”
“Who?”
“It’s not important.” I am even more confused than I was before. “Do not test me, Sadie.” He’s not conscious of the mistake that he’s made… telling me not to test him, is like insisting me to do just that. To see how far I can push him. To see how angry, I can make him before he once again slams me against the wall, both of us seething with passion, maybe rage-fueled-passion, but passion none-the-less before we tear each other’s clothes off.
It happens. Okay, so it’s happened once, every other time, the passion was one sided and that ‘passion’ was rage, also it explains the black eye.
The steam from the shower, is enough to start making it humid and that mixed with my body aches coming back are starting to make me sweat even more. As if Ro can sense it, he looks down at me, leaning sideways he turns the shower off, and cocks his head. “Are you okay?”
“Huh? Yeah. I’m just tired. I didn’t sleep well last night. I’m going to go lie back down.” I rush out the words before I shove past him, flipping the lock on the bathroom door, and sprinting back to the room.
Once I’m secure inside and have locked myself in, I double over onto the ground before I force myself to crawl over to the bag still in the corner. Unzipping the front pocket, I tug out the bag, remove two of the pills, and place them on the table. Using the spoon, that is in my bag, Icrush them up before grabbing ahold of the small travel bag inside. Setting it on the ground, I push myself up and walk into the bathroom, washing my hands and then moving back into the bedroom. Opening it, I pull out my most shameful possession, glancing over and making sure that the door is locked. I scoop the crushed powder onto the spoon and then pull out the brand-new needle, another thing that I stole from J before I fled on the back of Ro’s bike. In fact, the entire ‘travel kit’ is J’s, and he’s going to be pissed, the fuck off, when he realizes that I took it. Setting the needle to the side, I flick the lighter, holding the flame underneath of the spoon and heating it until all of the powder turns to a thick liquid. Picking up the syringe, I pull the plunger back as it collects all of the spoon’s contents, and sit it back down for a moment. Grabbing the belt, I wrap it around my arm, pulling it tight with my teeth, reaching for the needle off of the nightstand, I look down and line it up perfectly. I stop suddenly,fuck,reaching back into the travel kit and pulling out the alcohol swab, opening it and then running it across my arm to clean the area. I pick the needle back up and gently push it into my skin and slowly press the plunger down.
Clean needle, clean injection site, less marks,which is more important here than ever before. No one at the Marauders clubhouse gave a shit, but as I feel my high take over my body and I put all of the supplies into the travel bag, hiding it back inside of my book bag, Ro’s words filter back into my head.
